Going (formerly Scott's Cheap Flights) is a flight deal alert service that monitors airfares and notifies members when prices drop significantly from their home airports. It operates on a freemium model with premium tiers offering more routes, faster alerts, and mistake fare notifications.
Going competes in the flight deal aggregation space against Secret Flying, The Flight Deal, and Jack's Flight Club (Europe-focused). It also faces indirect competition from Google Flights price tracking and airline loyalty programs that offer members-only pricing.
Free price tracking with Google's data infrastructure. Covers all routes and airlines, but sends passive notifications rather than curating exceptional deals.
Free website and app posting mistake fares and deal alerts. Less personalized than Going but covers international deals without a subscription paywall.
Uses machine learning to predict whether flight prices will rise or fall, advising users when to buy. Also offers hotel deals and fintech products like price freeze.
Similar deal alert model but focused on departures from European airports. Premium tier for faster alerts and more destination coverage.
Google Flights' free price tracking reduces the value of basic fare monitoring. Going must demonstrate that its curated, human-vetted deals provide significantly better savings than algorithmic price alerts available to everyone for free.
Airlines are getting faster at catching and canceling mistake fares. As the window for booking error fares shrinks, the value of premium deal alert services like Going diminishes for their most compelling use case.
Many users subscribe, book one great deal, and then cancel. Going must maintain engagement between trips through content, travel planning tools, or loyalty mechanics to reduce this single-purchase churn pattern.
For frequent travelers with flexible schedules, Going often pays for itself with a single discounted booking. Casual travelers who fly once or twice a year may find the free tier sufficient.
Google Flights tracks prices for specific routes you search. Going proactively surfaces exceptional deals you might not have searched for, including mistake fares and flash sales across all destinations.
Secret Flying offers free deal alerts, Google Flights provides passive price tracking, Hopper predicts price changes with AI, and Jack's Flight Club serves European travelers. Airlines' own loyalty programs also compete for deal-seeking flyers.